Behavioral Neuroscience

long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD).

QUESTIONS

1. Long-term potentiation is now believed to be the neural mechanism underlying associative learning. Describe the phenomenon of LTP with reference to the experimental conditions that produce it.

2. Describe clearly how LTP depends upon paired stimulus presentations (e.g., as Pavlovian conditioning does) for it to occur. You might approach this from why LTP would NOT occur if the “strong” (US) and “weak” (CS) were either unpaired in time or presented backwards (US followed by a CS).

3. Describe the role on the NMDA receptor in LTP. Make it clear that the sequence of events matches those for LTP.

4. Discuss the evidence for new synaptic growth during LTP.

5. What is the significance of LTD (long-tern depression)? Why would we need neural mechanisms that resulted in decreased connectivity?